Need You for Mine (Heroes of St. Helena) (17 page)

“How is invading a private conversation good news?” Adam asked.

Dax shrugged. “Wanting to take it slow means you like her.”

“Everyone likes Harper. She smells like the beach and birthday cake.” She was also funny and genuine and one hell of a friend. He’d seen it in the way she treated others, and now that he’d been on the receiving end of that gift, he didn’t want to jinx it.

“Yeah, but you
like her
like her,” Dax said.

“How does any of that
Harper told Emerson who told you
BS equate to me liking her?”

Dax took the stack of Post-its out of Adam’s hands and, without asking, staggered them around the park, while Jonah stood there silently for a while. Tense. Assessing. Calling on every little trick of the trade he’d learned in that fancy detective school he’d attended.

It worked—sweat beaded on Adam’s forehead.

“Women have been chasing you since you were old enough to buy condoms,” Jonah began. “You always let them catch you. At least for a night or two. Then you somehow charm them into thinking that being friends was their idea.”

“‘No ties, no one cries,’” Adam repeated what had become his mantra over the years. Only, now when he said it, it felt odd. Like he was spouting off a lie.

“Yeah, I never really thought you believed that BS,” Jonah said. “Just like I don’t think you believe that all you want from Harper is friendship.”

“There is nothing wrong with being friends,” Adam argued, which only made his brothers smile bigger. The assholes. “We’re just having fun.”

Even saying it made him wince, because yes, Harper was different and with her he always had fun. But when he was around her he was different too. Lighter, happier, grounded.

Able to experience the rush of the jump without the impact of the landing that usually followed. But the landing would come if he wasn’t careful—with Adam and relationships it always did. This meant he needed to tread lightly, think before he jumped, because when he did jump, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be jumping alone.

Everything Harper did in life was in tandem, and he’d meant what he’d said last night. Life was too short to be ordinary. Which was why he lived balls-out, chasing the next high. This time though, if he had to deploy the chute, then he wanted to make sure that neither of them walked away burned.

Because with Harper, there wouldn’t be a reserve chute.

His brothers exchanged concerned looks. “Well, while you’re braiding each other’s hair or talking about favorite boy bands or whatever else girlfriends do while having fun, you might want to ask her advice on this map,” Dax said, picking up the Post-it for Dr. Harvey Peterson, the town’s podiatrist, and sticking it to Adam’s forehead. “I might not have been back for very long, but I know enough about this town to understand that stationing Handsy Harvey’s Complimentary Two-Minute Foot Massage station next to the Ladies’ Baptist Choir is an epically stupid decision.”

Adam had already met his quota of epically stupid decisions for this lifetime, plus he’d told himself he wasn’t going to kiss Harper today, which was why he was dead set on avoiding her. At least until he’d had twenty-four hours to clear his head—and get that image of her straddling him out of his mind. So when he received a text a few minutes later, asking him to pick up a shift, Adam decided that the map could wait.

“Gotta go to the station,” he said, gathering his things. “Daugherty’s wife isn’t feeling well, his kid’s got the flu, and he needs someone to fill in until his mother-in-law can get here from the city and play house nurse.”

And since Adam had no wife, no kid, and no good reason to ever turn down overtime, he had become the official go-to guy when it came to covering shifts. Normally it didn’t bug him, that was how it worked, but for some reason this time it caused a weird tension to build behind his shoulders.

“What about these?” Jonah held up a stack of forms.

Shit.
He was supposed to be at the station anyway to hand out forms to vendors and answer any questions. “Can you cover Beat the Heat duties for me until Seth gets here around three?” he asked Dax.

Rolling up the map, Adam headed for the door and decided it was a good thing, because going to the station meant not going to see Harper about logistical problems—or anything else, no matter how epic it might be.

“You bet, as long as you drop Violet off at class on the way,” Dax said, and before Adam could ask what class, a three-foot-tall girl in Converse and pigtails ran out from the lunchroom and climbed in Dax’s lap.

And Adam got a really bad feeling. Violet Blake, Emerson’s kid sister, was six years old, and could literally blind you with her sweetness. She was also a damn fine artist when it came to glitter.

“What class do you have today?” Adam asked.

“Sprouting Picasso,” Violet said, swinging her legs contently as though she hadn’t just complicated everything.

Not a big deal,
he thought, assessing the possible outcomes. “I can walk you to the door and watch you go inside, but then I have to get to the station.”

Violet jumped off Dax’s lap, then ran over to wrap her little arms around his middle. “That’s where I’m going! On a field trip to the fire station to see real heroes in action for our project, like Miss H promised!” she squealed, confirming that, yeah, he was totally screwed.

I
thought your hose would be bigger.”

Harper smothered a laugh as Tommy walked over to the deflated fire hose and nudged it with one of his shoes, which were “the Flash” themed, blinked red when he stepped, and hadn’t stopped moving since arriving at the station. Neither had Harper’s heart.

She had barely gotten two words out to her students about being on their best behavior—and not touching any red buttons—when their tour guide had emerged from the kitchen. It wasn’t Daugherty, the nearing-fifty father of seven who had a handlebar mustache and a keg in his belly.

Nope, their tour guide was over six feet of hard-won muscle and charm, wearing yesterday’s scruff, delicious SHFD work blues, and enough testosterone to melt the sun. And just as unexpected as Adam’s appearance was his date for the day.

Adam strode in holding hands with a travel-sized cutie, dressed in pink, pink, and more pink, who looked up at him with total and complete awe in her eyes. Violet wasn’t the only one mesmerized. Adam had charmed every person in that room—parents included—with a single smile.

Everyone except Tommy, who had his hands in his pockets and his eyes firmly affixed to Adam’s awaiting the correct answer, like he had for the last ten thousand questions he’d already asked.

Adam hunched down a little, putting his hands on his knees and getting eye level with Tommy. Harper noticed he did that a lot, talked to the kids instead of at the kids. “We rolled it out so you guys could lift it and see what it feels like. Want to hold the nozzle, buddy?”

“I want to see it big, like how Red’s is on
Cars
.”

“When that hose is hooked up to water and cranked to full pressure, it gets so heavy it takes three of those guys just to control it,” Adam said, pointing to Sam Lopez, a firefighter who Harper had gone to high school with. Sam was good-looking, built like a tank, and lived to make people laugh.

He flexed his muscles and the kids oohed, beyond impressed.

All except, Tommy, who stuck his hand in the air, even though he was already standing. William made a sound that translated into Tommy being the most annoying person on the planet. The rest of the kids were not quite as vocal in their irritation, but Tommy got the point all the same. They wanted to get to the fun stuff, like sliding down the pole, climbing in the engines, checking out what kind of candy was in the vending machines—and he was prolonging their lesson.

Tommy shoved his hands in his pockets, and Harper could almost see the internal debate play out between pleasing his curiosity and pleasing his peers. For a kid who had an IQ of
Shut the Front Door
and a twenty-thousand-questions-a-second brain, it was a hard decision. So when he looked to Harper for help, she smiled softly and said, “Why don’t you take your seat and let Fireman Baudouin finish his demonstration? There will be time for questions at the end.”

Tommy’s shoulders sank even more and he started walking back to the group.

“That’s okay,” Adam said, sending Harper a wink that had her knees wobbling. “Questions mean he’s interested.” Adam looked at Tommy. “What’s your question?”

“Are you going to hook it up so we can see?”

Adam got down on one knee and held the nozzle for Tommy to look at. “There are a lot of components when it comes to working the hose, so we use it just when we’re fighting fires.”

His hand went up again and Adam, once again, entertained him. “If we start a fire, you’d have to put it out, and we could hook it up and turn on the water.”

William’s hand shot up, but he didn’t wait to be called on. “That would be awesome! Miss H said we have to visualize what we want to paint and the hose looks like a spaghetti noodle, so all I can visualize is spaghetti, and I’m not allowed to eat spaghetti.”

Adam didn’t even bat a lash at the ridiculous train of ideas. Instead he straightened and looked at the group, all twelve of them, who were looking back expectantly, their little bodies quivering with excitement as if waiting for him to light a blow torch, then crank the water to high and make their day as fantastical as a Disney movie.

“That is what our imaginations are for,” he said. “Real fires are dangerous. Even the smallest ones can get out of control quickly, which is why you should never play with fire. And if you see one, you go to safety and call . . .”

He put a hand to his ear and the kids all yelled, “Nine. One. One.”

“My dad starts fires on our property.” This was from Tommy, who was now pacing in front as if he had the floor. “And he holds his hose all by himself.”

“Your dad would have gotten permission from the city to burn things on the property. And his hose is probably your average garden-variety, easy to handle,” Adam said, then looked right at Harper and she felt a little fire start in her belly. “This hose here pushes water out at a force of eight hundred to two thousand kilopascal units a second. That’s fast enough to stop a bullet.”

“Like the Flash?”

Adam looked back at Tommy and that fire in Harper’s belly warmed its way clear to her chest. Because Adam put his hand on the boy’s slim shoulder and said, “Just like the Flash. Which makes you the perfect guy to help me.” Even though he was juggling a dozen kids with a dozen different expectations, Adam was aware enough to understand the moment for what it was. This was a chance to connect with a kid who had a hard time connecting with people. “Who wants to go inside the engine?”

Every arm went in the air with so much gusto that most of them had to be supported by the other hand.

“Well, you need one of these first.” Adam grabbed a stack of plastic fire hats off the back of the engine. “And to get one you have to come up and hold the hose, then tell the class something you learned today that you didn’t know before.”

“About fires and hoses?” Violet asked.

“About anything. It just has to be something you learned today that you think is cool.”

“Like if a cat gets stuck up in a tree you will come rescue him, but if there is a bad guy at the door I should call Mister Dax?”

“Something like that,” Adam grumbled. “Now I need an honorary fireman to demonstrate how to control the nozzle, so everyone can see what it looks like.” He made a big deal about studying each kid, up close and scratching his head, so that they giggled, then his eyes landed on Tommy. “You up for that, Flash?”

Tommy nodded, so hard his shoes blinked as if giving off Morse code for
Holy smokes
.

“Great, put your hand here.” Adam took his time, guiding Tommy’s hands, moving his feet to a stance, slowly instructing him how to hold the nozzle while his classmates looked on in awe. Then Adam did the one thing that could make Tommy cool—he pulled his own fire helmet from a closet and slid it on Tommy’s head. “Now who wants to come up here so Tommy can show you how to properly hold the hose?”

A cacophony of excited
Me-me
s filled the room, and Adam pointed to a red X taped to the ground. “A good firefighter knows that being a team player and knowing how to follow directions are important to everyone involved. So let’s start the line here. Girls first, then boys. And we go in order of youngest to oldest.”

“That’s lame,” William, the oldest boy in the class, said, folding his arms over his chest.

“That’s called being a good guy,” Adam said, not an ounce of waver in his voice. “And it’s up to the big guys like you, who are older and have more experience, to make sure the littler ones don’t get lost in the shuffle. Help them figure things out.”

William’s chest puffed, then he took to guiding the kids into the line, making sure the little ones were up front. Then Harper watched as, one by one, Tommy showed each kid what he’d learned, pointing out the different parts and talking about the fire safety points he’d learned along the way.

Harper was touched at how invested Adam was in the kids’ feelings. He quickly assessed their strengths and weaknesses, giving them all a job that would challenge them while allowing them to succeed. And when they all finished with their turns, he let Sam take them to the outer bay to see the big ladder engine.

“Really? Clay has an average garden-variety hose?” she asked, rising to her feet as he walked toward her. She dusted off the back of her dress and pretended that her hands weren’t shaking.

“Facts are facts,” he said, not stopping until he was so close she had to take a step back—right into a wall. “Is that a new dress?”

“No, I just never wear it.” Its slim-cut and belted waist had always felt like too much, but when she’d put it on this morning it had felt just right. “And the last time you said
facts are facts
, it was to convince me I wouldn’t be seeing you today.”

“I didn’t think you’d be wearing this dress when I agreed to fill in.” He planted his palms flat on the wall above her head. His eyes? Those were firmly on her mouth. “And you should wear it more often. It goes well with Honeysuckle.” His lashes lifted. “You wearing Honeysuckle, sunshine?”

“Are you still just interested in being friends, Smoky?” she asked. “Because I have a lot of friends, and they aren’t privy to what I have on underneath.”

“They’re not your boyfriend,” he said playfully, but she wasn’t feeling playful at all. She was suddenly feeling confused and a little scared over how his words sent butterflies racing in her stomach.

“And you walked out of my place last night, so you can see why I want to clarify things.”

“I said a lot last night,” Adam said.

“You did.” There was also a lot that went unsaid, and that was what had the butterflies flapping their wings against her ribcage. “Like you weren’t going to kiss me today.”

He hesitated. “I thought I needed space, to clear my head.”

“And now?”

“The only time my head seems to be clear is when I’m with you. Like this.”

Still holding her caged between the wall and his mighty fine body, he stared down at her for what felt like an eternity, as if unsure about what he wanted to do. And while he was thinking about how he wanted to play this moment, Harper wondered just how long she could go without oxygen before passing out.

“Stay for dinner, Harper.”

She blinked. Twice in fact because a
Let’s get naked later
invitation or
There’s a party in my pants, wanna come
would have been less shocking. An invite to dinner was not what she was expecting. At all. And it confused her as much as it thrilled her. “Are you asking me on a date?”

“A date would be the two of us alone and, unfortunately, I’m still on the clock until Daugherty gets here, which means I come with seven other guys.” A little of the thrill faded. “But I’m cooking tonight and I would love for you to stay and have dinner. With me.”

Harper swallowed the hurt rising in her throat. “And seven other guys?”

“Who will all love you
and
give me a hard time for bringing a girl to dinner, which has never happened before. The girl thing, not them giving me a hard time,” he stumbled, and if Harper didn’t know any better, she’d think Adam “Five-Alarm” Baudouin was nervous too.

“Is this because you want to see my Honeysuckle or because you want to be my friend?”

He studied her for a long moment and Harper felt her heart race. Not just from the fact that she could smell the summer heat on his skin, but from nerves. She had to know why he was asking. Otherwise her mind wandered down a path that always led to disappointment and heartache.

And her heart was tired of aching.

“Can’t it be both?” he asked, his voice a low rumble, his blue eyes locked on hers. Open, genuine, uncertain—and filled with heat. He wanted her, it was right there—and Harper couldn’t seem to look away. “Can’t it be as simple as I want to spend time with you?”

“So Baudouin hears
secret weekly strip poker party
at one of the big Victorians near the college campus and, boom, he’s gone. Goes charging in the house like some kind of self-appointed savior for sorority girls everywhere,” Sam said, smacking his palms against the table for effect.

Not that he needed to. Every guy on duty was gathered around the kitchen, hanging on every word of the Adam-inspired story—even though Harper was pretty sure they’d all either been there or heard it a thousand times before. The only one who looked as if he wanted it to end was Adam, who stood by the stove tending to dinner.